Denver Beauty Swap Recap

Crazy stash of beauty swag, isn’t it?! We’ve been a little busy with our transition to Swap.com, so please forgive us for a lack of punctuality: we just got these AMAZING photos from our phenomenally talented Denver photographer, Chris Haugen of Free Lunch Photography, and wanted to share our momentous swap adventures from September in the Mile High City with you:

Hosted by our dear friend and beauty blogstress Carissa Passerella of Hooked On Beauty (who, along with her super-sweet husband and adorable pups, also hosted us girls at their gorgeous home for the week!), the Mile High Swaps were held at the glamorous wedding showroom StudioWed in Denver’s Highlands area. About 40 women from all over Denver showed up with their best like-new beauty products for a night of expert makeup demonstrations and makeovers from Carissa and her chic and talented colleagues, Carla Gray, a brow expert and salon owner in Denver, and Eva Marie Denst, founder of Makeup Mania in Denver and NYC. I grabbed a shot of Punky getting her new look from the incomparably cool Eva above. Seeing Punky without her signature eye makeup was really, really interesting — of course, she looks gorgeous in whatever she has on!

Carissa, in the sparkly pink sequin tux jacket, gives expert lessons about sanitizing your beauty products to swap with friends as well as personalized makeup tips to some of our brave beauty swappers, including our gracious venue host, Debbie Orwat, founder of StudioWed Denver and wedding planning expert, in the foreground.

No Swapaholics event would be complete without dessert, and these decadent cupcakes were donated to us from Big Fat Cupcake in Cherry Creek. We got to meet super-hipster-sweet founder and owner Kathleen Nevin, a breast cancer survivor and awareness advocate as well as the mastermind behind the pretty pin-up lookbook that is The Girls of Big Fat Cupcake 2011 Calendar. (Look them up on Facebook to find a copy for friends and raise funds for a spectacular cause this season…)

Carla Gray gives some serious brow advice to one of Carissa’s girlfriends, Jan, a Denver photographer and blogger and (can you believe it?) mom to six beautiful kids. Jan posted about the swap on her blog, Just Imagine Heaven. (She also took an adorable group photo with Carissa and Chris, here.)

Punky making sure all the products are in place and everything looks pretty, natch.

Speaking of food, we also made a fabulous new friend in Tricia Thompson, Denver marketing manager for PopChips. Tricia donated baskets of PopChips for our swappers to snack on and take home, and they were so addictive that we snacked on them for breakfast, lunch & dinner the rest of the weekend. (In case you’re wondering, we thought the Cheddar Potato variety made the best breakfast chip.) Tricia and her friends (above) had so much fun at the event that they were inspired to host their own clothing swap holiday party next week! She promises to send pics, and we promise to post them here.

For more pictures from our Denver event, check out this set on Flickr, and if you came to the swap, please add your own to our Flickr Group! We’ll be back in Denver sometime this spring for a massive clothing swap (or sporting goods swap, we’re not sure yet), and stay tuned for the infinitely cool time-elapse videos Chris took at both of our Mile High Swaps, coming soon…